Broadcasting and telecommunications have historically occupied separate fields. In the past, broadcasting was largely an “over-the-air” medium while wired media carried telecommunication signals. In today's communication environment, this distinction no longer applies as both broadcast and telecommunication content are delivered over optical, wired and/or wireless media. For example, broadcasts from traditional television (TV) broadcasters are now delivered over the air, via satellite, via cable, via the Internet, and via cellular communication. The infrastructure traditionally utilized for transporting cable television content has been modified to enable simultaneous communication of multimedia content comprising video, data and voice communication in addition to broadcasting. In addition, traditional cable television infrastructure has to be modified to enable high speed uplink communication from set-top boxes (STBs) to the cable headend.
Communication systems may utilize forward error correction (FEC) code to control errors in transmitted data due to burst noise, for example. FEC involves adding extra bits into a data stream before transmission. These extra bits may be used at the receive end for detecting and correcting errors. Examples of FEC methods include block codes, and convolutional codes. Exemplary block codes comprise cyclic codes, and Reed-Solomon (RS) codes,
Digital video broadcasting (DVB) comprises a number of standards that enable the broadcasting of video. Exemplary DVB standards comprise digital video broadcast via satellite (DVB-S), digital video broadcast via terrestrial television (DVB-T), digital video broadcast for terrestrial handheld devices (DVB-H), and digital video broadcast for cable television (DVB-C). The differences between the standards are primarily in their infrastructure and the type of modulation and error correction schemes that are utilized for processing and transmitting the broadcast content.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.